Is This Fascist A Friend of Ellen?

If these reports are to be believed, and I currently see no reason that they should not be, one should wonder if the anti-American loser in question is a friend of Ellen of Ellen's Tenth... The man in question is a Chicago lawyer named Jay Grodner who has an office in Ellen's hometown of Deerfield, IL. Grodner & Assoc. has a Chicago phone number (available on Google) that has been disconnected so this creepy little man could not be reached for comment. In the past hour this goof has also taken down his law firm's web sites (unless it was hacked, which I doubt, after all there is no humor on the site, it is just gone) however here is a cached version of one of the sites.

Jay Grodner of Grodner Assoc. has been accused of vandalizing the car of an Illinois Marine who had Illinois license plates on his car that celebrate the military. This, ahem, adult "keyed" the Marines car, meaning that the pig has been accused of scraping his key along the side of Sgt. Mike McNulty's, car causing $2400 worth of damage. Grodner, a contemptible loser has said that he might pay the $100 deductible. This man went to law school? What kind of crap education did he receive? Hey Pythagoras, do you think that McNulty's insurance company would be okay with paying for your criminality? Sheesh!

Hey Ellen, what do you have to say about your fellow Traveler?

Mr. Grodner, not only am I only starting to write about your sorry ass but I come from a family of lawyers, meaning that I get free legal advice.

HatTip: Instapundit

Dan Seals Still Doesn't Get It?

My opponent, Dan Seals has run for congress in the Illinois 10th once already but he continues to show that he doesn't understand the district. That is no surprise, the man has never lived in the 10th district. He has also shown that he may not be up to speed on American politics. According to 10th district blogger TA at Team America's Tenth District Blog, Mr. Seals has been sending out e-mails decrying the use of earmarks in the latest budget passed by the House. Somebody should probably tell Mr. Seals that the Republican Party is no longer running the US House of Representatives, that of course means that Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) is not in a leadership position that could put a stop to earmark abuse. The use of earmarks was a Democratic strategic argument during the last election, the one that Mr. Seals lost. Thus it is more than a little strange that he would try that strategy again, especially when the Democratic Party leaders are to blame for any earmarks in this budget. Mr. Seals is running as a Democrat.

It is noticeable that the earmark system has become much more opaque since the Democratic takeover of Congress just 12 months ago. Many of the commenters at Team America's Tenth... have taken Mr. Seals to task for stating that he would have voted against the earmarks that represent needed projects for the Tenth District. But seriously folks, why the heck should Dan Seals care? He lives in Janice Schakowsky's district.

TA rightly recalls that Rep. Kirk helped to kill the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere" that Flying Debris commented on here after finding that Dan Seals' biggest supporter, Ellen Beth Gill of Ellen's Tenth District Blog had taken Rep. Kirk to task for cutting off that pork-barrel project in an inane post titled "Imagine No Way to Get to O'Hare". Because Ms. Gill was so confused about O'Hare, Flying Debris wrote the following in order to help Ms. Gill understand the Chicago are economy:

As a friendly note to Ms. Gill; O'Hare is a serious piece of infrastructure that affects millions of people in the tri-state area and around the nation; and I'm not even talking about the air travelers. To see an example of O'Hare's importance to the non-traveler Ms. Gill and her cohorts may want to take a drive along the southern boundary of O'Hare Airport. Drive down Irving Park Road west of Narraganset and take a look (to the north) at the traffic coming out of the O'Hare shipping terminal. For some further education they should trail some of those trucks that leave O'Hare and follow them down to the Joliet area, a booming trans-shipment are for the entire Midwest. It could be an educational field trip of sorts. Then they could try the same exercise in Ketchikan, the amount of industry that is reliant on air transport is underwhelming and it is hard to imagine the industry that would rush to take advantage of easier access to the Ketchikam airport other than tourism. I guess that somebody has to stick up for the wealthy fishermen of the 10th district and their desire to catch (non Lake Michigan) salmon and Ms. Gill fits the bill.

Suburban Democrat Wants You - Dead

I try not to wander over to the pit of ignorance that is Ellen's Tenth... due to the fact that like petulant, spoiled third-graders they bring nothing to the table. Well the head dip Ellen Beth Gill has another in what must be an unending string of boring posts that blame Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) for everything bad that has ever happened to anybody Ellen has ever met, and her psoriasis. Only joking about the possible psoriasis, that may be the one thing that Ellen has not blamed on Congressman Kirk.

In this post from Wednesday I asked:

How many people should die in order for some of our fellow countrymen to not feel any discomfort? Would the allegedly virtuous among us trade the lives of the murdered Cantor Fitzgerald employees in order to make themselves feel better about themselves? How about the murdered employees of Marsh McLennan? How about the murdered employees of AON Insurance? How about the lives of the WTC janitors and support staff? How about the lives of all of those courageous firemen? How about the lives of the murdered Pentagon employees?


In that post I stated that the strange Democratic leader Harry Reid supported protecting those who would murder Americans in order to make himself and his fellow travelers feel more righteous about themselves. I guess that Ellen and her crew have been feeling a wee bit down about themselves lately (well, not just lately) and they need to buck themselves up by supporting terrorists. Lovely people.

While reading the drivel that passes for insight up in Ellen's hell it struck me that those folks have absolutely no clue concerning strategy of any sort. Not really a shock but notable. What are those people willing to do to protect Americans? Well, if we catch the culprits after they kill Americans the Democrats may be willing to make you pay for the terrorist's lawyers. Are they willing to make a terrorist uncomfortable for 35 seconds? No. Screw you. And screw yours.


Last week I wrote a few posts on the disgraceful Democratic Illinois State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias who ripped off an 83 year-old woman who did not qualify financially for the $1 million mortgage (as he admitted under cross examination), could not fill out a mortgage application while using a mortgage scam run through his family bank with the help of convicted mobsters. The mobsters have felony records including bookmaking, prostitution and one of them had been convicted twice of bank fraud. Mr. Giannoulias claimed "I know nothing" repeatedly in court. That strains credibility unless the Broadway Bank of Chicago is in the business of making loans to 83 year-old ladies and their mobbed-up associates in order to perpetrate frauds. Additionally the pompous Mr. Giannoulias was elected with the help of "squeaky clean" Barack Obama. Where is Ellen when her friends, with the help of their mob associates are ripping off senior citizens with mortgage scams and getting elected to public office with the help of Barack Obama? The last linked post even includes a Barack Obama commercial for the mortgage scam artist. Where is Ellen? Nowhere, that's where she is, nowhere.

She's a real nowhere girl
Living in her nowhere world
Making all her nowhere plans
For nobody

But I digress. This is the Democratic world in a nutshell: they will endanger your life and the lives of your friends and relatives so that they don't have to accept the world as it is. That might shatter their carefully crafted world of delusion. They live in a fantasy world where everything is wonderful except for that evil Bush (Kirk) who brought all of this Islamo-fascism to the world. If it weren't for Bush (Kirk) those jihadists would be making beautiful rugs for orphanages around this wonderful world of ours. Additionally the mortgage problems that we have been experiencing during the last year are the fault of Bush (Kirk). You know, he (they) own(s) property so it must be his (their) fault. The mortgage problems really, really, really have nothing to do with mortgage scams and frauds run by Democratic leaders. Heaven Forbid.

Ellen Outraged over Republican Loo-Tube Debate!

Okay, Ellen of Ellen's Tenth... has nothing to say about the Democratic Party's planted questions that appeared during the Clinton News Network (CNN) Loo-Tube Debate last night. Actually she has some inane piece about a Senior Citizen with heart problems (Ageism, Healthism), a Woman of Color (Sexism, Racism) and an Asian man (Regionalism). A sense of humor would help over there but not even the washed-up Aaron Freeman could help that crew, despite some sort of crash course in improv that he gave the local Dems last month. The intersection of humor and intellect is several miles away from Ellen and her acolytes. Here is one of Mr. Freeman's alleged pieces of humor "(a)sked what his best Bush joke is, Aaron answered, 'Bush in '08. It's the scariest too,' he quipped." Freeman was once funny, twenty years ago with the help of others. That, ahem, joke is pathetic.


More to the point, the Democratic supporters of Sen Barak Obama (D-Rezko) were recently outraged by the fact that his opponent Sen. Clinton (D-China) had planted questions during their last debate. Well, well, Michelle Malkin has a great rundown of the wide variety of Democratic presidential candidate supporters who made the show with their own planted questions. Yes, there was a Obama supporter who was a plant.

Many of my Democratic friends scoff at the idea of media-bias (to howls of laughter from those of us who stay informed!), my serious reply is that if many members of the media are not biased they are simply dumb. That is, of course a direct and often unnoticed insult to the Democrat speaker. There really is no way around it, either the people who work at CNN are complete imbeciles or they are extremely biased towards the Democratic Party. As an aside I have been on CNN and the camera man was sharper than the CNN on-air personality who interviewed me. Although possibly the most dense media person who I have ever spoken to was a producer on a CNBC afternoon finance show. The host Erin Burnett is pretty hot and she struck me as sharp, her producer however was one of the dumber people who I had professional contact with last year.

Biased or Stupid, you decide!

Dems Diss Ellen's Pet Bill!

Last Wednesday, Ellen over at Ellen's Tenth... blamed the continuation of the Democratic 1969 jealousy inspired tax law known as the Alternative Minimum Tax, the AMT (see a great run down on the tax here) on Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) who was in the fifth grade when this nonsense was implemented. Ellen has not informed her readers and it is unlikely that she will inform her readers that some Democrats played hard-ball politics in the House with the AMT bill. That bill's failure is a failure that Ellen blamed on Mark Kirk. Well the Wall Street Journal has this interesting story concerning the ability to sue the Salvation Army. You read that right, the ability to sue the Salvation Army. Steny Hoyer had this to say during the House floor dust-up, "How dare you destroy this party? This will be the worst loss in 10 years."

See Flying Debris' take on the opinions on this issue over at Ellen's Tenth here, here and here.

Hat Tip (on the WSJ article): Instapundit

Don't Like the AMT? Then Call Ted Kennedy!

Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Ma), pictured above with his ex-wife Joan, is shown wearing a collared head restraint during the summer of 1969 after driving his car off of a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, Ma. and leaving a young, single woman to drown in his wrecked car.

The Democrats who are currently blaming George Bush and the Republican Party (Hello Ellen?) for the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), that Flying Debris discussed here and here, should consult the Senior Democratic Senator from Massachusetts for some instruction as to how this jealousy-inspired tax monstrosity came to be. The problem with that approach is that Senator Kennedy may not remember much from the summer of '69, and he can't blame Woodstock.

More Democratic Wackiness From 1969

Yesterday I discussed Democrat Ellen Beth Gill of Ellen's Tenth... and the fact that she blamed Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) for the AMT tax law that was pushed by congressional Democrats in 1969, the year that Congressman Kirk was in the fifth grade. Also see this excellent rundown on the AMT from the Backyard Conservative. Well I was reading the Oct 15 issue of Autoweek when I ran across more Democratic wackiness from 1969. Autoweek has been doing a great series for their 50th anniversary, each week they have been dedicating two pages to one of those fifty years. Well on Oct. 15 they covered the year 1969 and what a year it was. Sure a Ford GT40 with 23,000 racing miles on it won the closest Le Mans 24 hour race in history over a Porsche 908 after numerous lead changes on the final lap but it was the year's politics that caught my eye. It turns out that Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson introduced a Senate bill to ban the internal combustion engine by 1978. Senator Nelson's wackiness had nothing on the Democrats from California, including Nicholas Petris who introduced a bill to ban diesel and gasoline engines in California by 1975. Not to be outdone prosecutors in Los Angeles attempted to prosecute the Big Three Auto makers for conspiring to defeat clean technology.

Gee, I wonder how that bit of childishness would have worked out?

Ellen's History for the Dumb

How else to describe the people who congregate over at Ellen's Tenth...blah,blah... Ellen, writing from some pathetic swamp is now blaming the AMT on Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL). Hey Pythagoras, he was in fifth grade when the Democratic Party decided that this piece of ignorant, jealousy-inspired, Democratic garbage should be enacted into law. I can attest that Mark Kirk was not in Congress voting with those idea-challenged Democrats of the late sixties. Just as a little hint to Ellen, Mark was also not in Congress during the Seventies, the Eighties or the Nineties. In 1969 Mark and I were doing multiplication tables in Mr. Monts' class you ditz!

The AMT, the Alternative Minimum Tax, was implemented by a Democratic Congress in 1969. The Democrats implemented this nonsense to force several tax payers who had somehow avoided paying taxes to pay a minimal amount of federal tax. In their utter ignorance the Democratic Party decided that the tax needn't be indexed for inflation and they have rhetorically fought against any such indexation in years past. They even regularly stated that they wanted the revenue.

So as a hint to Ellen, the people who you support gave us this ridiculous, jealousy-inspired tax law. Now that the tax is affecting some of Ellen's compatriots (though surely not Ellen herself) she is blaming Republicans for a Democratic law. Delusion, Thy Name is Ellen's Tenth.

Leftists Call Rahm A "Racist"?

Okay, if it takes a "member of the vast right-wing conspiracy" to defend Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) then things are not going all that swimmingly over on the other side of the pool. Yesterday, Markos Moulitsas of the Daily Kos asked whether Rahm Emanuel is a racist. A few weeks ago I read a comment stream on Ellen's Tenth... concerning Rahm and Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) that was bizarre even for those folks. So what the heck is going on?

Methinks that some folks are trying to move any blame concerning the current congress away from the more outwardly liberal Pelosi and toward the more centrist Emanuel. Some commenters over at Ellen's place and on the regressive Daily Kos don't seem to understand what Rahm did last year. He recruited good centrist candidates in vulnerable districts around the nation and not only were those candidates successful but they gave the Democratic Party its current House majority. Amusingly one or more of the commenters thought that Rahm had attended high school with Mark Kirk, Rahm attended New Trier West at the same time that Mark attended New Trier East, so to answer one commenter, no Rahm did not beat up Mark in high school.

As I have noted a few times on this blog I have met and talked politics with Rahm on numerous occasions as we have mutual friends. In addition, as I wrote here, I have voted for Rahm, he is my congressman. This is in no way an endorsement of most of his policies but rather a statement that Rahm is generally reasonable, I certainly have taken him to task on this blog but I have also been supportive where need be.

More to the point, last year I talked to Rahm about the world of political blogging in general and the Daily Kos in particular, I wrote about that conversation here and here. The first time that I wrote about that conversation was before the 2006 election and I noted:

During our recent conversation we discussed the then upcoming Connecticut Senate primary and the involvement of certain blogs in the race. The conversation was private so I will not divulge anything past what one could reasonably discern from his public statements. Mr. Emanuel was animated at the mention of those blogs and he genuinely seemed to understand the possible problems that some of those bloggers and their readers could pose for the image of the Democratic Party. We were in a public place so those comments were made to me with a somewhat hushed voice; this district has a very large population of committed left wing moonbats.

A few days later I had a chance to speak to one of our mutual friends, a man who is one of the original Friends of Bill (Clinton), and we both agreed that although Mr. Emanuel uses the red meat rhetoric of the left wing, he was much more practical and down to earth than he often sounds. This gentleman (the FOB) said that he wasn’t surprised that Mr. Emanuel was leery of the left side of the blogosphere and that he was trying to blunt their effect on the party, Mr. Emanuel has always struck this Southern gentleman as more down to earth than the leftists who are in ascendancy in the Democratic Party.

After the election I wrote:

Last summer I had the chance to discuss politics with my Congressman, Rahm Emanuel; during that conversation (see this post) we discussed the problems that the unhinged left could cause for the Democrats. He clearly understood those problems and voiced serious concerns about them. As it is now after the election I feel less constrained to discuss our largely private conversation. He was very animated while discussing the folks over at the Daily Kos, saying that they had never won anything; on that point he sounded like a conservative blogger. Because Mr. Emanuel worked so closely with the Clintons I had no problem bringing up that issue with him, after all the triangulation strategy also relies on the center and the right. I believed then, as I believe today that the nation is better off without one of our two political parties going off of the deep end. He understood my concerns and as I said, he was as animated as one could be as an office holder in a public place in an area populated by very liberal people. At the end of our conversation I wished him well in his attempt to bring the party towards the center. Clearly Mr. Emanuel’s strategy was to find candidates who appeared to be centrist; they also seemed to lean towards former servicepersons. He certainly was successful.

Okay, so Rahm Emanuel is too centrist for Markos of the Daily Kos and the average leftists in the Democratic Party, that is a dog bites man story, or as President Clinton might say, that dog won't hunt. The interesting aspect is how this internecine warfare will affect the next election, which by the way is 51 weeks from next Tuesday. Rahm's concerns during the last election cycle centered around the tendency of some in the Democratic Party to undertake unproductive political projects and to be, for the lack of better phrasing, somewhat obnoxious. He also repeatedly pointed out that "they have never won anything."

Rahm left his post at the Democratic Congressional Committee and is currently the Chair of the Democratic Caucus, it is his actions in that office that currently have him in hot water with the Kos crowd. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md) is currently in charge of the Democratic effort to keep control of the House so he may be the next one under the Kos gun.

Update:
Welcome Instapundit readers and thanks to Professor Reynolds for the link. After what I consider a less than successful audition at Second City Friday afternoon (sometimes improv doesn't work) it's nice to get an Instapundit link.

Hat Tip: Instapundit

A Hint For Palast & IL 10th Dems

The other day I wrote about the pathetic Democrats of Chicago's North Shore who congregate on Ellen's 10th Congressional District Blog and their bazaar fascination with Greg Palast, a dippy BBC reporter who cannot figure out the obvious. Mr. Palast blamed the recent rise in oil prices on President Bush because he was once in the oil business. Well here is a story that did not make it on to the radar of the American press but it is overly relevant to the world oil situation, China Fuel Crisis Spreads. They are experiencing violence in relation to fuel shortages in China, I blame Dick Cheney!

Delusion, Thy Name is Ellen's Tenth...

Every once in a while when I need a good laugh I point my browser over to Ellen's Tenth Congressional District Blog run by Ellen Beth Gill, an attorney in Illinois. Ms. Gill (if I may call her that) apparently is an attorney in this fine state and that should scare every American. Ms. Gill attended an anti-war rally in Union Park in Chicago (Ashland & Lake) along with several hundred other souls, out of the several million people in the Chicago metro area last Saturday and was obviously enthralled by some dip named Greg Palast. Mr. Palast's Wikipedia entry describes him as a reporter for the BBC, which explains a lot.

If Ms. Gill is to be believed in her account of Mr. Palast's speech then the man has some pretty serious issues, as do those who were in his thrall last weekend. Ms. Gill described a man who is so utterly divorced from reality that he really should be about two bits from the gutter, but no, our "intelligent" Democratic friends not only employ the man but swoon over his deranged ramblings.

Ms. Gill starts out her recounting of Mr. Palast's, um, episode by stating that the price of oil is up because of George Bush, you know, he was once in the oil business. Mr. Palast apparently has absolutely no clue concerning the supply/demand situation that has played out in the oil markets during the past decade. Palast and those dippy Democrats may not realize it yet but the Chinese and the Indians are buying (and yes, driving) automobiles in unprecedented numbers. Oh and those automobiles run on gasoline, the same fuel that Ms. Gill and her fellow travelers use in their automobiles. The dippy Palast said that the war was started not for oil but rather to keep the Iraqi oil off of the market for the benefit of OPEC. That would be the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries that Mr. Palast was referring to, the same group of governments that stole the assets of many American oil companies under the guise of "nationalization". Obviously those oil companies have every reason to forgo the profits of delivery in order to make crude oil more expensive and to help those governments that ripped them off. Roll another one, just like the other one...

Palast was reported to have called Houston, Tx. the "capital of Iraq" and apparently whined throughout the evening about governmental privatization; after all, we all know that "Nobody Does it Better" than the federal government.

The speech got even stranger and the audience got even more gullible as the night went on and Mr. Palast explained that Karl Rove's aides have been accidentally sending Palast e-mails that incriminate the senders, Rove and the Republican Party in a scheme to disenfranchise voters. What type of person would say such an obvious dishonesty in public? Who would take such an assertion seriously? No word yet whether or not Ms. Gill was able to fit the Brooklyn Bridge in her back yard but the view would be just fabulous.

Clearly the Beeb's Boy has some problems, he claimed to have made a FOIA request to see the evacuation plans for New Orleans but that the plans had not been completed because the plan had been outsourced; probably by those notorious Neo-Con Republicans Mayor Ray Nagin (D-NO) and Governor Kathleen Blanco (D-La). The truth is that the city of New Orleans was required to file an evacuation plan with the Federal Government in the spring of 2005, which they did. The problem was that the corrupt Democratic governments of New Orleans and Louisiana refused to implement the plan until it was too late. Those two Democratic leaders held a press conference the morning before Katrina hit (Sunday) and admitted that President Bush had called both of them the previous morning (Saturday) and told them both that they needed to EVACUATE the city of New Orleans. They demurred because they didn't want to scare people. They both reported their exchanges with the President in a manner that made it clear that they would use such a request against George Bush if the city was not inundated. Whoops!

Strangely (or not) Ms. Gill also claims to be in the thrall of the late W.E.B. DuBois, a man who once made this genuinely brilliant observation to the National Guardian in March of 1953, "Joseph Stalin was a great man; few other men of the 20^th century approach his stature." Okay, it's not so strange that Ms. Gill, a woman who apparently will believe anything, is also in the thrall of some guy who lionized Stalin.

It is a sad and pathetic world over at Ellen's Tenth and we should all be glad that we aren't leading lives of envy and delusion like Ms. Gill and her acolytes. Once again, I blame Owsley Stanley.

It is also worth noting that in a post today Ms. Gill described Ann Coulter as the Republican Party spokesperson and wrote that the Republicans are responsible for her comments. What can you say? Ms. Coulter, a woman who does not do her ideas any favors is not a "spokesperson" for anybody except for Ann Coulter, to say otherwise is a lie. Many found her comments on theology to be ridiculous but many of the same folks complainingabout Ann Coulter don't seem very upset over the fact that a sizable swath of a different religion is actively trying to end all of the human rights that Ms. Gill and her minions so often claim to find so dear.

The title of this post was inspired by Hamlet, thank you William Shakespeare.

The Fun I Missed!

A few weeks later the blogger gets back to the keyboard! My excuses? Many. I started out preparing for an hour-long final show on the Main Stage at Second City Chicago after spending a year at the Second City Training Center's year-long Improv Program. In addition to that show and watching the pathetic Chicago Cubs during their post-season swoon I had a guest in town. An old girlfriend came to Chicago and stayed with me for a week. She lives outside of Boulder, Co., so as you the reader can only imagine we approach the world very differently. That's the beauty of America, a neo-con and a neo-hippy can be best of friends and actually talk about our world. However a few more weeks out of the mountains could actually be therapeutic for her.

While I was otherwise busy some of the usual nonsense of the blog world continued, including the fact that Ellen Beth Gill, the lawyer who writes Ellen's Illinois Tenth Congressional District (blah, blah, blah) Blog (Flying Debris discussed her blog here and here) has banned comments from those pesky people who disagree with her and her fellow North Shore Democrats. I was given the heads-up on the issue by Team America, an occasional commenter here and a regular commenter over at Ellen's place, he has been banned and low and behold, so had your humble correspondent. Well Team America has decided not to take this affront laying down and he has started Team America's Tenth District Blog. From what I could discern from his comments and the first few posts he is a sharp and sharp witted Republican lawyer from Lake County, IL. What is it with all of those legal bloggers anyways?

As a self described moderate Republican I would expect Team America to cover the upcoming campaign of my childhood friend Rep. Mark Kirk (IL-10), a Republican moderate who has flown missions over Iraq as a Reservist while serving in Congress. Mark's last opponent Dan Seals, the son of Bear great and former Board of Trade member George Seals has been running again since last June, Mr. Seals has been running for office rather than working for a few years now. His father George Seals is a great guy, when I was just starting out on the floor of the Board of Trade I darted out of a pit into an aisle right as George Seals, the former Bear offensive guard was running to the soybean pit (it was less than a minute before the markets opened), those who know me in person also know that even as a young man I was going to lose to the former Bear. I picked myself up and went on to do whatever I was in such a hurry to do, Mr. Seals never broke stride. I knew that I was in the wrong, I didn't look when I jumped out of the pit but George Seals later came over to apologize and make sure that I was in one piece (I told him that it was my fault and that although I ached a little bit it was a real experience to be run over by a Bear), he is one of those real class acts. I hope that his son follows his father's lead this time around as far as his campaign goes, last year's version was not exactly a high point for the Democratic Party.

What Would the Left Do?

What would a lefty blogger do with the hysterical pictures above? A couple of weeks ago I was driving up the Edens Expressway when I came across the woman pictured above. She had part of her car dragging behind her and it was attached to a bumper that held a sticker for last fall's (and a current) Democratic candidate for Congress in the Illinois 10th Congressional District, Dan Seals. Well if the shoe was on the other foot and the car had a bumper sticker for 10th District Congressman Mark Kirk (R-IL) you can bet that those photos wouldn't have languished inside of an iphone but rather they would have been trotted out to show how heartless, stupid and yes dangerous those evil Republicans are. I did no such thing concerning those funny photos, Dan Seals and the Democratic Party because it would have been stupid.

Well none other than Illinois 10th Congressional District Democratic blogger and Dan Seals supporter Ellen Beth Gill, the blogger at Ellen's Illinois Tenth Congressional District Blog that I wrote about here, has written a post concerning a woman who allegedly drove through a stop sign "in the city" (I would presume Chicago) while using her Blackberry-type device. Ellen has blamed the incident (that occurred "in the city") on President George Bush and the North Shore Congressman Kirk. This has got to be one of the most ridiculous posts I have ever read. I must ask, does this nonsense represent the left side of the blog world? I must also note that she has no photos of that neo-con outrage "in the city."

One would think that a resident of one of Chicago's suburbs would know that the residents of the city of Chicago are overwhelmingly Democratic and the women are even more so. Especially if said suburbanite is part of * the local suburban Democratic Party. Frankly, if the event described actually occurred the driver was likely one of Ellen's compatriots who was driving-while-blackberrying "in the city". Maybe it was even a lady on an iphone reading one of Ellen's posts.


*It is well worth noting that the link for "part of" is to the Illinois 10th Democratic Organization. When I was a child I did a lot of work for Democrats in that area for the New Trier Democratic Organization (NTDO),some of it for the Mikva campaigns mentioned on the 10th site and that my late father was once a force in the NTDO; along with the late yachtsman Lynn Williams. I cannot speak for Mr. Williams but my father recognized the problems that his party has been having with the far left long ago and would have appalled that the 10th District Organization has become so closely aligned with the Daily Kos types and their yearly convention. The Yealrly Kos will be the same weekend as Lollapalooza, go figure.

Big Hat Tip to Publia of the Wilmette blog who noted the ridiculous post in the comments section of my original post on Ellen's Tenth.

Last night I incorrectly wrote that I had worked for the IL 10th Democratic Organization and have since corrected the post.

Many thanks to the wonderful Dr. Sanity and her Carnival of Insanities for inclusion again this week. Go read her blog!

Update: Thank you Team America! You are right that link was incorrect, I thought that I doulble checked it after posting; I blame Dick Cheney! The correct link is now posted, thanks again.

Bridge to Nowhere Finds a Supporter

Yep that's right, while reading some of the the worst of the blogosphere yesterday I found what could be the only supporter of Republican Senator Ted Stevens' infamous "Bridge to Nowhere". The pork-barrel project that became a cause celebre to both fiscal conservatives and power hungry Democrats has had little to no open support from anybody in the lower 48 states and the earmarked spending has become shorthand for all that is wrong with congressional finances.

Strangely this single supporter is a Democrat. Maybe not all that surprising after reading her blog, Ellen's Illinois Tenth Congressional District Blog (succinctness is not a strong point over there) has been maintained by attorney Ellen Beth Gill who was a representative to the 2004 Democratic Convention from the IL 10th. Ms. Gill (if I may call her that) is currently blaming her, um, nemesis Congressman Mark Kirk, the Republican who currently represents the IL. 10th. Ms Gill has something to blame on Mr. Kirk nearly every day (sort of pathetic but hey it's her life) and last weekend she has resurrected a post from June '06 in order to blame the Republicans in general and Mark Kirk specifically for the, ahem, infrastructure problems of South East Alaska. Ms. Gill was helpful in pointing out the post from last year as it is hysterical; the post is titled "Imagine, no way to get to O'Hare".

Comparing the air field in Ketchikan, Alaska to one of the world's busiest airports is utterly inane but a few peeks at her comment sections show that she knows her readership, very well. On Sunday Ms. Gill blamed Mr. Kirk for helping to defund a bridge for 20 people a day but is now very happy that our nation may, in the end, spend millions of dollars to save time for a few Alaskans and a few wealthy tourists.

As a friendly note to Ms. Gill; O'Hare is a serious piece of infrastructure that affects millions of people in the tri-state area and around the nation; and I'm not even talking about the air travelers. To see an example of O'Hare's importance to the non-traveller Ms. Gill and her cohorts may want to take a drive along the southern boundary of O'Hare Airport. Drive down Irving Park Road west of Narraganset and take a look (to the north) at the traffic coming out of the O'Hare shipping terminal. For some further education they should trail those trucks that leave O'Hare and follow them down to the Joliet area, a booming trans-shipment are for the entire Midwest. It could be an educational field trip of sorts. Then they could try the same excercise in Ketchikan, the amount of industry that is reliant on airtransport is underwhelming and it is hard to imagine the industry that would rush to take advantage of easier access to the Ketchikam airport other than tourism. I guess that somebody has to stick up for the wealthy fishermen of the 10th district and their desire to catch (non Lake Michigan) salmon and Ms. Gill fits the bill.

If it matters I attended Joseph Sears School and New Trier East High School with Mark Kirk.